When cloth-like, cloth, or plastic measuring tapes, which are readily available today, are used to determine the circumference of portions of one's body, or another's body, from infants to adults in size, it is difficult to accurately hold the measuring tape and to correctly read the dimension being sought. This problem has been recognized for many years and there have been measuring devices presented in prior patents which are considered solutions.
Of these prior patents some have been directed primarily to measuring a person's finger to determine his or her ring size, such as J. B. Ingalls' U.S. Pat. No. 1,069,551 of 1913, wherein a loop of tape, secured to a planar base, was passed around a finger and via slots was pulled along a planar surface on the planar base. A scale was imprinted on this planar surface, and a line on the stopped tape indicated the ring size, then being in alignment with the line on the measuring tape. E. A. Stemm in his 1904 U.S. Pat. No. 766,911 disclosed his finger measuring unit integrally formed of one piece for looping about a finger and being returned down through a slot and then back up through a slot, with the ring size reading being read at the first slot. Gerald Colin in his 1964 British Pat. No. 955,637, illustrated his finger size integral measuring unit having a transverse slot at a wide end to receive its other tapered end, after looping about a finger, with the size being read at the slot.
Other of these prior patents have been directed primarily to measuring larger body portions. Charles B. Hatfield in his U.S. Pat. No. 650,389 in 1900 provided a slotted finger gripped handle to which a cloth measuring tape was looped at its end to a necessarily selected measurement and then sewn back on itself. The free end of the tape after being passed about a person's waist, for example, was guided into an open slot of the finger gripped handle and pulled tight, with the body portion size being read at the slot. Jacob Klein in his U.S. Pat. No. 1,011,628 in 1911, provided an open slot handle to which a cloth measuring tape was pivotally connected to one side portion of the open slot. The free end of the tape, after being passed about a person's waist, for example, was guided back through the open slot and pulled tight, with the body portion size being read at the slot. Gerald L. Bresson in his U.S. Pat. No. 2,262,664 in 1941, illustrated and described his measuring instrument for measuring both the circumference and diameter of round bodies. A limited length finger gripping handle and a cloth measuring tape secured to one side of a slot which then represented the zero dimension. The free end of the tape after passing around a cylinder, for example, would be directed up through the slot and pulled tight. The measurement sought would be read at the side of the slot where the measuring tape was pivotally secured.
Although all of these patents indicated the use of loops of measuring tapes, with one end of the tape being secured at one location on a finger held structure, and arranged for its free end, after passing around a body portion, or an object, to be returned to the finger held structure and drawn tightly, with a reading being taken at a slot location, there remained a need for a comparatively lower cost anatomical measuring device to be more conveniently handled, to be more accurately read, to be more accurately and quickly originally and subsequently equipped with a conventional unaltered measuring tape, which is placed and secured with the zero end of the conventional measuring tape located at the extreme and zero end of a finger held handle, and with no edges of the guiding slots being used as measuring lines or points, and also with an opposite concave end on the finger held handle to align the tape portions being rolled up, when the measuring tape is compacted for temporary carrying and storing.
Moreover, there was a need for a measuring tape which would be manipulated with one hand, and when the tape was pulled tight it would frictionally hold the correct dimension, so the tailor could use his or her other hand to record the dimension. In addition the tailor subsequently could use the tape, without looping it, for inseam measurements, and any other linear planar measurements.